Balmont’s Parable of the Small Sultan

bdralyuk

2 years ago

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I’d like to share another poem from the “Freedom Anthology.” In March 1901, Konstantin Balmont (1867-1942) — then one of the most popular poets in Russia — was sentenced to three years’ internal exile for reciting a treasonous poem in public. This poem was, ostensibly, about a “small sultan” in Turkey. But neither the audience nor the Tsarist spies were fooled. It clearly referred to events in Russia — namely, the violent suppression of a student protest in front of the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg earlier that month. Here is Balmont’s parable, in my translation:

This was in Turkey, where there is no conscience.
What reigns there is the fist, the lash, the scimitar,
Two-three nonentities, four villains,
And one small sultan, who is none too smart.

Once, in the name of liberty, and faith, and science,
Thinkers assembled — a small, zealous group.
Bashi-bazouks descended on them like a pride of lions,
Each one only as strong as his coarse whip.